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I rake and turn old mulch as many times as possible to keep it looking new before I add new mulch. When I can no longer make it look good by raking and turning it, I add new mulch on top of the old mulch.

My sister used grass clippings until she realized it was making grass grow everyplace she used it.

I buy dehydrated, compressed coir "bricks" (coir is made from coconut husks) from Gardener's Supply. I like that it doesn't weigh that much, but when I rehydrate the brick, I get a lot of mulch. Much better than lugging heavy bags of mulch to my car and then to the spot where I want the mulch. Instead, I rehydrate the coir in place, right near where I am going to use it. I use a large plastic container to rehydrate it. Mainly I mulch my daylilies, 99% of which go completely dormant each winter. The coir breaks down quite a bit every year, so I add to the coir surrounding each plant in the fall.

Beware of pine: it contains bacteriocides that can injure the soil microbes and is very acidic as it decomposes. [In the old days, for an emergency at-home delivery, the new mother was often placed on newspapers (pine newsprint) for this beneficial sanitary effect.] Pine needles also tend to mat and prevent penetration of rain water if used excessively.

I use well composted horse manure: great texture and good nutrient balance. Commercial stables usually give it away free for the asking, if you're not lucky enough to have your own horse.

Beware of pine: it contains bacteriocides that can injure the soil microbes and is very acidic as it decomposes. [In the old days, for an emergency at-home delivery, the new mother was often placed on newspapers (pine newsprint) for this beneficial sanitary effect.] Pine needles also tend to mat and prevent penetration of rain water if used excessively.

I use well composted horse manure: great texture and good nutrient balance. Commercial stables usually give it away free for the asking, if you're not lucky enough to have your own horse.

I've never had any trouble using pine straw for mulch. And I'm thinking LSU did a study on how pine straw affects the acidity of soil and found that it didn't change it much. And I've never had pine straw mat together...maybe because the trees around here have very long needles?

Oh, and amen to the horse manure...when I had more energy years ago and access to a large truck bed, I would get a truckload of horse manure from a friend...he would just load it up with his front-end loader and I would unload it in a pile at home and spread it everywhere, or compost it if it was too fresh. Great stuff! I still remember those monster grubs that we would find in it....for some reason they loved it too.

Horse manure does have a lot of nitrogen, but also a lot of seeds that might not be desirable. I'm not in the game anymore due to advancing age and my current urban address, but I formerly relied on composted leaves and yard debris mixed with a bit of construction sand and a half-and-half mixture of dried cow manure and peat humus. That served well as both an amendment and a pre-mulch top-dressing.

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